7 September 2017

Chronological Terminology

  • Mainland Greece: "Helladic"
    • so "Early Helladic"
  • Cyclades: "Cycladic"
    • so "early Cycladic"
  • Crete: "Minoan"
    • so "Early Minoan"
  • "Early Bronze Age" = the Aegean Region as a whole

Argicultural & Technological Developments

  • From Late Neolithic to Early Bronze Age, domesticated animals used for traction (plowing, carts, etc.) and "secondary products" (milk, wool, hair, blood)
  • In Early Bronze Age, first clear evidence of the addition of olive and grape cultivation ("vinculture")
    • Both plants native, but wine technology seems to originate in NE Anatolia/Caucasus c.4000 BC)
  • Bronze (c. 9 Cu : 1 Sn) appeared in Mesopotamia early M4 BC; western Anatolia c. 3200 BC; Aegean shortly thereafter
  • Tin is exceedingly rare in the region, the nearest source perhaps being eastern Anatolia.
    • Metal, unlike stone and ceramic, can be recycled.

Aegean Early Bronze Age Fortifications, M3 BC

"FAF" Cycladic Stone Figures (marble appears to come mostly from Naxos and Paros)

Early Muinoan Stoneware

Contemporary Egyptian stoneware from the same period

End of Early Helladic

  • Early Helladic III (c.2200-2000 BC), settlement sites on manland and in Cyclades are
    • Destroyed by fires
    • Abandoned, or
    • Both
  • Some are resettled within a few generations
  • Others aren't resettled until well into Middle Helladic (c.200-1700-1600 BC)
  • Evidence for susrained srought in Eastern Mediterranean and Eurasia beginning c.2200 BC (the "4.2 kiloyear Event")

  • Malthi, SW Peloponnese, example of settlement Nucleation and changes in architechture in MH II

  • Development of axial/rectangular construction & large circuit walls

"Palaces"/Courtyard complexes emerge on Crete

The Development of Crete's "Palaces"/Couryard Complexes

  • Historical development
    • First Palace Period: late EM III - end MM II (c.1750/1700 BC)
    • Second Palace Period: MM III - end LM IB (c.1490/1425 BC)
    • Third Palace Period: LM II - LM IIIC (c.1450-1170 BC, associated with political control of mainland Greek orign)
  • Note the disjuncture from the three divisions of the Bronze Age

Scale Model of Malia (so you can see what it may have looked like)

Cave and Peak Sanctuaries

  • Peak sanctuary on Mt. Iouktas above Knossos
  • It has been suggested that the "pillar crypts" typical of the basements of the courtyard complexes and other monumental buildings are stylized caves (see Neer, pp. 28-29).

Frescoes from the West House in Akrotiri, Thera (Santorini), Late Cycladic IA

Fresco of priestess [?] at Mycenae, c.1400 BC, at the Mycenae Museum